Columbia Building
The city’s Bureau of Environmental Services required that the project meet a minimum LEED Gold certification, incorporate sustainable design practices and provide a working demonstration example of stormwater infiltration.
The Columbia Building is a public project for the City of Portland that not only houses the engineering department of the wastewater treatment facility, but also functions as an immersive educational experience around sustainable infrastructure and green building policy.
The city’s Bureau of Environmental Services required that the project meet a minimum LEED Gold certification, incorporate sustainable design practices and provide a working demonstration example of stormwater infiltration. Our solution was a new 11,490sf Engineering Building and campus site that includes office space, a visitor reception space and public meeting spaces, all integrated within a sustainable landscape.
The new single story building features seven folded cast-in-place concrete roof forms that channel storm water through each eco-roof, draining along the berms into a visible collection system that leads back to the Columbia River. This project accomplished three unique objectives in one single campus site: we created a vibrant and efficient workspace, clean on-site stormwater filtration and a dynamic conversation around the health of the surrounding watershed all working for clean rivers.
